Let me tell you a little story……
I love
Saturdays on the farm, they are by far my favorite day. We (Wiz, my mom, and
myself always find ourselves on an adventure. Sometimes it’s to the auction and
other times it’s a bit more exciting like our trip to check out the sheep. This
past Saturday was one of those exceptional adventure Saturdays.
It
started off just like most Saturdays do, with a trip to the auction. Normally
we bring Hay over to sell but with all the snow we’ve had it was impossible to
get to the round bales that we usually bring. So we just went over for the
cookies (!). The Amish sure do know how to make their cookies. After checking
out everything else that was for sale, mostly hay and wood. Wiz and I didn’t dally
long since we had a big day ahead of us. See remember those sheep I was telling
you about well we purchased them but the breeder was keeping them until the
lambs were fully weaned. We were extremely grateful since the weather isn’t really
conducive for hauling lambs that are only 3 months old. That was about 6 weeks
ago.
Anyways,
we headed home to load up the crate and Wiz and I (Mom had to work so she
stayed home) headed about an hour away to get my new pets. The day was
beautiful lots of sunshine and zero wind, and we were super excited. Well I
guess I should rephrase that I was super excited, the Wiz was calmly indulgent of
my whimsy. We reached our destination around 1:55 pm a full 5 minutes early!
The man and his son who had sold them to us already had ours penned off so all
we had to do was lift them into the crate on the back of the truck, which took
us about 5 minutes, piece of cake. After they were loaded we had to wait while
the son got our receipt (this is sound business advice, no matter how small the
transaction make sure you get a receipt), so we were asking questions and
generally making sure we understood exactly how to care for these animals. No
matter how many books you read or internet research you do, nothing beats firsthand
experience, so always ask lots and lots of questions.
In the
process of our questioning we asked to see his rams. Three of the sheep we were
getting were yearlings and we were hoping to breed them within the next month.
We wanted to see how big the ram was so we could anticipate the size of animal
we would need. So through the snow we tramped to see the rams. They were medium
sized, so nothing we needed to be worried about. About 10 minutes later the son
came back, we signed on the dotted line and were off. The day was so beautiful
and the sheep seemed to be adjusting well to their mode of transportation that
we decided to stop and get something to eat on the way home. We stopped at one
of the Wiz’s favorite places and had hot dogs, we were there for about an hour.
Then we hit the road again. A little over an hour later we made it back to the
barn. Now, we have a lot of snow. And by a lot I mean so much so that we have
exactly the width of the truck, which means no room to turn it around, no room
to back it into the barn pen. So basically all we could do was back the truck
as close to the gate as possible and hope for the best.
We left
them safe and sound in the crate so that we could finish readying their pen.
Our cows are currently housed in a large pen we have behind our big barn, they
have ample dry area, access to water and as much hay as they can fit in their
little bellies. We had decided to put the sheep behind the cows, that way the
cows would offer extra protection from the elements and all that straw and
extra bodies would keep everybody warm. We put up a fence, added a feeder for
hay, a bucket for water and laid down some straw for bedding. All set, release
the sheep. Of course when we opened the door to the crate they didn’t want to
get out. They were comfy in there, and they had no clue where they were now. Up
I went into the crate to coax them out. One by one we got the little ones out.
I shooed them to the back of the crate and wiz carried them into the pen. When
Wiz was carrying the third one back to the pen and I was trying to keep the
other girls in the crate I heard “Hey you better get down here and close that
gate” Oh man we must have had and escape. I jumped off the truck bed, scurried
through the gate, pulling and latching it closed behind me, and see Wiz trying
to corral the two that had escaped. Together we were able to herd them back into
the pen. Then it was time for the big girls. When we had put them in the crate
Wiz had made a comment on how heavy they were. For Wiz to think something is
heavy then you know its heavy, that should have been a red flag right there but
we just thought that he was overfeeding them. So I pushed the big girls to the
front of the crate and wiz tried to wrestle them down, they weren’t too excited
about that. Finally we got the first one off the back of the truck and headed
through the gate. Sheep are herd animals, so where one goes the others want to
follow. Immediately the other two girls wanted to jump off the truck and follow
her. We had a heck of a time getting them to follow directions and come down
one at a time. Once we did, it was mostly clear sailing. Only one of them got
loose and started running around with the cows, but once she saw where the
others were, she skedaddled right in the pen. I hadn’t picked out names for any
of them before but once we got them home I decided on Annabeth for one and
Percy for the only boy in the lot. To say that Wiz and I were exhausted would
be an understatement, it was now close to 6pm and we still had chores to do.
When we finally hit the sack we were extremely grateful.
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| The three babies have mostly been named; The one closest is still unnamed, the middle one is Pickles and the third one is the boy who is named Percy. |
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| These are the three yearling females. The one closest is Annabeth. the middle one isn't named yet and the far one (whose butt is the only thing you can see) is MaMa. |
You
might think that’s where the story ends, but oh no dear friends, it gets better
much better…..
When we
had picked up the sheep the breeder had told us that he was graining them twice
a day, once at 5 in the morning. Now I am all for taking care of the sheep but
there was no way I was getting up at 5 to feed them. 7:30 yes, 5 am NO. I get
up at 7:30 on most days to fill the furnace so I figured that would have to
work for them. But this Sunday morning of course, given all the excitement of
the previous day I overslept my alarm and rolled out of bed around 8. I was in
no hurry to fill the furnace and make my way up to the big barn. But eventually
I slipped my barn boots on, under my Pajama pants, and threw a jacket on, over
my tank top. Not really winter wear but hey I was just going to throw some wood
in the furnace and some grain in with the sheep, I’d be back in 10 minutes…. Tops.
I hopped on the quad and headed to the barn with a gallon of water and visions
of lamb babies dancing in my head. I undid the gate and toted my water jug into
the pen, giving a shout of good morning to the cows.
What
happened next still is confusing to me. When I approached the sheep pen I was
still thinking about all the babies we were going to have this summer, so when
I saw a small animal in the sheep pen I thought I was hallucinating. I
proceeded to fill the water bucket all the while thinking nothing of the small
shape. Once the bucket was full I headed over to where we keep the grain. I
kept an eye on the sheep. As I walked in front of the pen the little shape let
out a surprisingly loud BAHHHH. I (and this is no exaggeration, excuse the
profanity but I want to give an accurate account of what happened) jumped back
away from the pen and yelled “Hot Damn” that little shape was a real baby
sheep. One of the three yearlings had given birth. I turned and ran for the
gate. Wait, I thought maybe I really was imagining things. I walked back to the
pen and did a headcount. 1-2-3-4-5-6…. Holy cow there were 7 sheep in the pen.
OMG there was a real baby in there. Now I was frantic, I needed to get back to
the house and get Wiz. I jumped over the gate, not even bothering to unlatch
and open it. The driveways were slippery and I was driving like I was on Mario
Kart, skidding and sliding all over the place.
Thankfully I made it back in one piece. I jumped off the quad before it
even came to a stop and ran into the house, yelling and screaming all the
while. As soon as I was in the dogs, sensing my excitement and anxiety, began
barking their heads off. My mom who had been sitting on the couch jumped up and
tried to understand just what it was I was babbling about.
“GET
WIZ THERE”S A BABY. WAKE HIM UP. SHE HAD A BABY.” She was so confused and all
the racket certainly wasn’t helping. “Who had a baby” “The sheep” her eyes
widened and she scurried over to their bedroom. During this conversation I was
fighting to get my boots off. I followed her over to the door, and stood over
her shoulder yelling at Wiz to get up. He acknowledged us groggily (he claims
to have heard me drive up and bound up the stairs and into the house. He
thought one of them had died and he was going to have to deal with a distraught
first-time farmer). When mom closed the door and turned back to me she said, “Oh
my gosh we have a baby” I promptly burst into tears. This was too much, I had just become a sheep
farmer and now I had to deal with a baby. I had no clue what I was doing.
Looked like I was going to have to jump in feet first. I headed back up to the
barn. Sure enough the baby was still there. It looked like it was trying to
nurse but the mom wouldn’t stand still long enough for it to latch on. When Wiz
and mom came up to the barn we set about trying to get her to latch on and get
some milk. The first couple of hours of any animal’s life are the most
critical, if they don’t get enough milk they won’t get enough bacteria into
their systems to fight off infection. It took a while for us to accomplish
this. The whole time mom is standing over the sheep’s neck trying to keep her
still so we can try to save the baby. It was really cold, and the baby needed
milk and warmth, every minute, every second counted. While we were doing this Wiz noticed that she was a girl (!). We
finally got her to latch on and thought she had gotten quite a bit so we
decided to move them into the barn. I carried the baby and Wiz maneuvered the mama
(which is what I decided to call her since she was one that I hadn’t had a name
for yet). We got them into a pen in the barn and got a heat lamp on them. Once they
were settled, I climbed in (and put a lawn chair in the corner so I could keep
an eye on things, make sure she was getting enough milk and what not). I stayed
up there for 2 hours but she never seemed to warm up so Wiz came back and got
us and we brought her down to the house, wrapped her in a towel and put her on
the register in the laundry room to get warm. I ate breakfast while she warmed
up. Wiz and I talked about a plan that we hoped would give her a chance at
surviving.
“You
know” he said to me during a lull in the conversation, “Those other two look
like they might be bred too, they were pretty wide” Oh jeez what if they all
went into labor, we didn’t have the room for all of them, we really weren’t prepared
for this. But nonetheless we had to get prepared. When I took the baby back up
to the barn her MaMa was more than happy to see her. I named the baby Sunny since
she was born on a Sunday and she was a little ray of sunshine on an otherwise
gloomy day. So that’s the story of Sunny friends. The Sunday surprise we didn’t
see coming.
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| The baby taking a nap with her MaMa |
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| Getting some love from Grandma |
